Facsimile versus Googlimile
My apologies for a bad joke. I just can't resist poking fun at Google. Or Amazon. But not Amazon in this post. That comes in the next one. I'll be honest and say that most digital books, whether in PDF or other formats, leave me cold. Download most any book from Google and the pages look downright anemic. All that white background, high contrast text and washed out graphics leave me feeling as if I am reading a draft version of a document from a printer low on toner.
Perhaps it began with my exposure to digital imaging in an archives setting. Producing a master image that could stand in for the original in a pinch was the goal. Color was used if there was relevant color involved. If not, grayscale was the format of choice. Tears, creases, stains, etc. were preserved in the master image and often in the primary PDF file. Bit by bit, PDF documents took over as the medium of choice for the academic types. I'll say this, on a whole the academic types didn't care if the PDF was produced as a facsimile or a thoroughly white-washed version. What they wanted was the content. The experience was secondary or even useless to them.
I, of course, am heavily biased. I like books. Paper, print, smudges, notes, dog-ears and all that stuff. I also like the idea of preserving and distributing books in digital formats, even if those digital formats are as ephemeral as you can get. Now there's an oxymoron for you - Digital Ephemera. There is, perhaps, no document more ephemeral than a digital document. But I digress. Which is something I rarely do. Even if I do have a tendency to go off in tangents of one sort or another. Yet, I am still digressing. Back to the topic...
Here is an example of the same page, in facsimile and in whitewash. I don't know where I retrieved this image from, so if it I am breaking copyright, I apologize and fall back on Fair Use. The right hand image is what Google and in fact, most imaging services like to produce. The left hand image is the original, in full color. Background removal is practiced at it's most extreme. Specs, wrinkles, paper texture, dead bugs and all that good stuff is removed. Text is slightly improved in contrast and sharpness. But overall, it simply doesn't have any age to it. No feeling of history. No soul.
Why is the right hand image preferred by most imaging services and even most online document providers? There must be something sinfull about producing a PDF that actually looks like the original. My best guess is that there is a preference for a page that looks as if it was produced in MS Word. Sparkly clean and new. Oh well. The most unfortunate aspect of my bias is that to produce a facsimile of a book in a hard cover format, I'ld have to opt for full color printing. The book would cost an arm and two legs. Pity.
But in PDF, you can get away with color or really good grayscale. Which is, of course, my preference. That point made, I guess I choose to force my opinions upon the public. Even if the original has nice clean but slightly yellowed or browned paper, I think that is the best way to present it in a PDF. So what if the original, when printed, looked different. I like what I like and I feel that everyone else should also like what I like.
Actually, that is not true. When it comes to producing a good digital image, I want to be able to look at the image and feel as if I am looking at the real thing, not a piece of digital ephemera.
And so, to sleep. Till next, Gary
"If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber'd here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend:
if you pardon, we will mend:
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call;
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends."


